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variousqueerthings · 8 months

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we have always been here: documentaries about trans people

documentaries about trans people, starting in the year 1953. I don't speak to filmic quality or whether or not something is problematic, what matters here is simply the testimony and the stamp of existence (including in those where the subject matter is spoken about, rather than getting to speak for themselves)

(I haven't seen every one of these yet, so some of them have slightly shorter texts to go along with them)

while (as you'll see) most of these are US-based movies, they are from all over the world. I'd be curious about whether there are any focused specifically on the intersection of transness and disability, I don't personally know of any, although of many speak to issues with access to healthcare (for example southern comfort)

all the ones that have links connected to them are watchable for free

some of these can be watched for free on the archive, youtube, vimeo, many could do with a few coins thrown their way: many of the movies, for example the the aggressives can be rented on vimeo, transgender tuesdays is free on youtube but accepting donations for trans women of colour, lotus sports club is doing festivals currently and is accepting donations to support the team and the vulnerable trans (now men) who have had to leave it to find work, call her ganda is accepting donations to support the family's legal costs in bringing justice for their daughter

remember, finding the stories that have been graciously shared is one thing, supporting our community is the next step

glen or glenda (1953): the first known movie about trans people, a mixed-media semi-fictional account (US)

the queen (1968) (US): following drag-queens at a national beauty pageant two years before stonewall, including footage of crystal labeija (US)

change of sex (1979-1999): a five-part series following trans woman julia grant as she tries to access gender affirming care via the gender identity clinic (UK - available on BBC iplayer)

paris is burning (1990): documenting queer people in the ballroom scene, community, competition, and challenges (US)

shinjuku boys (1995): following five young men who work at onabe bars, which cater to women, as they try to make ends meet (Japan)

transexual menace (1996): snapshots of the melting pot of trans life in new york, from famous faces, to protest, including several immigrants to america from columbia, west africa, japan, hawaii, and germany (Germany/US)

you don't know dick: courageous hearts of transsexual men (1997): about several trans men in different walks of life, who chat about their experiences, politics, and history (US)

the brandon teena story (1998): a documentation about the murder of brandon teena, using testimonies from the people involved (US)

southern comfort (2001): follows robert eads in the final year of his life, before he died of initially treatable ovarian cancer (US)

superstar in a housedress: the life and legend of jackie curtis (2004): a portrait of jackie curtis, one of the earliest punk pioneers, by (mainly cis) people who knew her (US)

screaming queens: the riot at compton’s cafeteria (2005): a rare documentary of the time featuring the voices of trans activists, about the pre-stonewall compton's cafeteria riot (US)

beautiful darling (2005): a portrait of candy darling (one of the trans woman superstars of the 60s) from the perspective of the (mainly cis) people who knew her (US)

the aggressives (2005): centered on black studs, mascs, and trans men, and more, exploring the term "aggressives," race and gender, filmed over five years (US)

Jayne County: man enough to be a woman (2005): a performance by veteran punk musician Jayne County and her band (UK/US) (excerpt)

beautiful daughters (2006): following a group of trans women who performed the vagina monologues in 2005 (US)

still black: a portrait of black transmen (2008): a series of interviews following black trans men speaking about their lives, careers, race, and gender (US)

the advocate for fagdom (2011): a series of political testimonies by queer activists, including the punk musician vaginal davis (US)

she said boom: the story of fifth column (2012): a documentary about seminal 1980s queercore punkband fifth column (Canada)

TRANS (2012): following a series of trans people at varying places in their transition, and the people around them (US)

hide & seek (2013): a group of trans people in pakistan speak about their experiences with the language they have access to (Pakistan)

before the last curtain falls (2014): transexuals and drag queens in their 60s-70s touring a show called "gardenias" (Germany)

mala mala (2014): following a number of trans people in puerto rico from all walks of life (Puerto Rico)

queercore: how to punk a revolution (2017): a primer to the history of queercore with interviews of some of the people who created the scene (US)

laerte-se (2017): a portrait of the underrated visual artist laerte (Brazil)

a year in transition (2018): 20 year old arab-american trans man documents one year of going on hormones (US)

call her ganda (2018): the story about the murder of a trans filipino woman named ganda by a us marine and the repercussions (Philippines)

indianara (2019): indianara is an activist fighting for trans survival and rights in brazil (Brazil)

disclosure (2020): going through a history of trans representation in the media (US)

transgender tuesdays (2020): featuring trans people talking about a groundbreaking gender-affirming clinic that opened in the 90s in the san franciscan tenderloin district (US)

prayers for sweet waters (2021): three trans sex-workers who live in cape town discuss their experience during covid (South Africa)

the end of wonderland (2021): follows erotic photographer tara emory as she goes through changes in her life (US)

travesía travesti (2021): the last performance of a cabaret during the chilean revolt of 2019 (Chile)

casa susanna (2022): documentary about the 50s summer retreat for male crossdressers and trans women (US)

la vida es un carnaval (2022): in a rural town, a group of trans women plan the first gay pride during its annual carnival and a bunch of scar tissue comes up (Mexico)

this is not me (2022): two young transmen in iran with supportive families share their daily lives (Iran)

lotus sports club (2022): a football club in cambodia run by trans man pa vann and a safe space for trans boys and lesbians (Cambodia)

nel mio nome (2022): four italian transmen share their thoughts, experiences, and identities (Italy)

the dads (2023): a group of dads of trans kids meet with the father of matthew shepard for a fishing trip (US)

kokomo city (2023): intra-community, celebratory documentary centering black trans sex-workers in america (US)

#queer stuff #trans stuff #queer resources #queer cinema #queer documentary #trans documentary #trans rights #queer rights #queer culture #queer art

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seekers-who-are-lovers · 1 year

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Pretty in pink: Kazuki K & subversion (an homage)

Note: For Kazukiweek 2023: Acceptance

Pink is fresh. It is a happy color. It is positive. It is a sign of good health. That says a lot about Kazuki Kurusu. He has a bubbly personality, his optimism is brimming, especially after the seventh episode. It sure helps that Rei and Miri have become his ethos, have accepted to welcome the changes after five years of losing Yuzu. Usually, he wears his emotions on his sleeve. (But I think that’s only a front.) I love him. Right to the 11th episode, he has totally embraced the new life he’s been leading with Rei and Miri. The fact that he wanted it all along but was apprehensive because of his traumatic experiences made him cautious of the way he dealt with Rei and Miri. Rei’s determination on the second balcony scene was the catalyst because he knew how much K wanted it.

That fond looks K gives toward his family.

In the West, we are past that era where men cannot subvert pink’s gendered stereotype. You see men wear pink dress shirts, pink suits and other piece of clothing and they look spectacularly good. It is still a test of bravery for some though. Small boys still despise this color perceiving it as a girly stuff. New mothers try to veer their daughters away from this color by consciously not purchasing and introducing pink-coloured merchandise to their daughters’ color palette only to be disappointed because of peer pressure in the kindergartens. You know Elsa and Anna and the beautiful ladies of Disney and their association with pink? Too common, too banal.

However, “in contemporary Japanese culture, says (Barbara) Nemitz, pink is perceived as a masculine and mournful color that represents ‘young warriors who fall in battle while in the full bloom of life.’” Slain young samurai. All right. (Thanks to PA Works, it didn’t come to that though.)

It is also the color of sakura, cherry blossoms, which are the Japanese’s favourite flower. They do picnics just enjoying and gazing at the beauty of cherry blossoms (and later, peach blossoms). The Hanami. Some Japanese migrants adapted this ritual/event to their host countries and it is a sight to behold.

Different shades/nuances of pink worn by K and the moms

Pink has long been associated with homosexuality. The pink triangle. The lgbtq movement reclaimed the former badge of shame used by the Nazis incorporating it into the pride flag later. Though almost 70 per cent of the Japanese society supports it, it still is a huge problem to come out.

While there are no legal implications, coming out remains taboo for many in Japan for fear of being ostracized. A survey of young LGBTQ people published last year found high levels of mental anguish, including suicidal thoughts. More than 90% said they couldn’t talk about their sexuality with their guardians. Very few people in national politics or the corporate world are openly gay, although homosexual themes and LGBTQ celebrities are a staple of television and other forms of entertainment.

“Buddy Daddies” is not marketed as BL, but the show makers can write whatever about their characters. Sometimes implying them without direct confirmation. It depends how the viewers interpret it.

But K also symbolizes subversion. K’s characterization nonetheless goes against of what is perceived to be the norm in the Japanese society. He is both a nurturer and a protector, though Rei certainly will take over this “protector/saviour” task without any question. From the looks of it, he’d do anything for K and Miri.

Rei always in front to gauge the danger

An odd man out, K does the household chores while he can carry an adult man without any problem. We have seen him does it more than twice already. He’s loud and conspicuous. In Japan, you must never stand out. (<< - Shogo’s videos are highly recommended to watch btw!) He (and Rei) (go) goes against the rules. They blur the gender stereotyping in all aspects of life.

The crew presented the scenarios as if they were a matter of fact, normal, without making fun or light of it. No further commentary. One can say that it is subversive in a sense they want the audience to become aware of their thoughts on adoption, new family dynamics, the bureaucratic hurdles of enrolling your children and better access to daycare centres/schools to the ever-present mothers who have to give up their jobs and dedicate their lives to their kids, etc.

(It was unfortunate that they didn’t follow it up with Misaki Unasaka.)

Why do I get this feeling that one way or another “Buddy Daddies” had been the show makers’ thinly veiled social commentary on their society?

Anyway, I will miss his winking. Either way, I can still rewatch it.

Many happy returns, K!

#buddy daddies #buddy daddies anime #kazuki kurusu #buddy daddies wall of text #rei suwa #miri unasaka #kazurei #i could write an essay about K #and his love for the color pink #he’s not afraid of his masculinity #episode 9: no sweet without sweat #i salute all men who wear pink #and they look good on them tbh #apologies I overuse the word subversion #a birthday homage to K #happy birthday k #kazukiweek2023

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rawliverandgoronspice · 8 months

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This is not me defending Nintendo's shoddy writing when it comes to heavy parts of the Gerudo lore. But I do wonder if some of their really bad missteps are because of their lack of knowledge of Western racial politics. A lot of Japan is still heavily xenophobic, and racial diversity is almost zero, so they might just not actually think about the implications because they just... don't know they exist. It's not an excuse, because Nintendo IS a global company, and there should be some extra research done, since stuff like that is just really fucking iffy. I'm just trying to figure out where that stuff comes from tbh, and why it's still around, instead of being weeded out. So maybe that's a reason, in which case... maybe get some writers who can write depth into their characters.

Hey, thanks for the ask!

So... I feel many things about this, and I completely see where you're coming from, and I think you have hit the nail on the head about why Nintendo do not feel like handling this issue is necessary, or that it doesn't concern them altogether... but I have to be honest, I feel like we give Japan way too much slack on these issues in general, and it's a very common problem (thinking of the controversy on FF16 for just another recent example, or the way queerness is handled in a lot of anime and games). Regardless of, just, the artistic integrity to incorporate the rest of the world as existing alongside you which isn't... mandatory of course, but I believe is important for the sake of honesty: there are japanese people of color, there exists a queer japanese community, and a lot of immigrants living in Japan have to deal with rejection and being considered a second-rate citizen all of the time. Not to mention anything about the new generations of people who were victims of their occupation not so long ago, a subject which is still regularly repressed and ignored by their government (and by the world at large, the US had interests in quieting down some of the worst things they did due to Cold War stuff, and in the West we mostly focused on Germany and collaboration --which makes sense, it's what we knew, but anyway it's complicated and not the topic). This is not a case of mere innocence, it is a case of politically construed ignorance; which is very different, and should not be regarded as equivalent.

But even beyond their own internal socio-political issues, which I am not qualify to speak about beyond what I know from second-hand stories I heard and what I have personally researched, The Legend of Zelda is an IP that is tailored for the West (TM). It is incredibly more popular here than it ever was in Japan. It is a product designed for export. Trying to anticipate what the western market enjoys and fitting right in is part of their responsibilities as a brand if they want to succeed. So, either they did not consider this aspect, which was absolutely something they should be criticized for, as subjects of diversity are hot and trending right now (even without getting into their moral implication) and they did what I consider to be the bare, cynical minimum in this department; or they had an inkling, and considered their choices wouldn't be a dealbreaker. Which... they clearly were not.

Again, I am sorry to be a little cynical here, but while I certainly don't think Nintendo was being consciously malicious here, like making choices to actively play into harmful stereotypes and strict gender roles as some form of active ploy in some sort of culture war, Nintendo is run by conservative japanese men with capitalist interests and a responsibility towards their own government as a major player for japanese soft power. The company will *never* question its own biases, especially if the West just eats up whatever they do and build a human wall of excuses to justify their absence of accountability. This, beyond the game itself which is good and fine and also kind of soulless the more I think about it (in my opinion), is what depresses me and what makes it hard for me to move on: to give them a free pass on these subjects is a choice everyone is collectively making, because it is the Nostalgia and the Childhood and we are desperate for wonder and joy --and it ultimately makes us somewhat toothless as consumers.

And I want to add I am absolutely not immune to this, and it doesn't mean I'm condemning the practice of fandom or the possibility, or even the necessity, of holding several simultaneous truths about a piece of media at the same time and navigating them depending on what is being discussed; but Nintendo is obsessed with controlling its image as a company, curating things as acceptable or unnacceptable as they see fit, approving or disapproving of their consumers' behavior and punishing them accordingly (as well as the rest of the industry *side-eyes the thirty patents on basic gameplay actions*), and it's to say nothing of how employees may be treated beyond the perfectly curated Pikachu yellow walls. This corporate image of being non-controversial is enforced. It doesn't mean I don't admire them for a lot of things, their genuine commitment to game design innovation, their virtuosity when it comes to level design in particular, the way they foster pools of raw talent, their devotion to open up the market to new demographics of gamers, or for the risk they took with the Switch and the wonderful venues it opened for indie devs. I love their games, profoundly, and I owe the company a lot of my joy.

But again, I think it's important to consider several realities simultaneously; and this joy, this goodness, this beauty, while absolutely wonderful and worth preserving, always runs the risk of getting in the way of our discernment in what is getting sidelined.

#asks #totk critical #zelda critical #zelda fandom critical #nintendo critical #gerudos #thoughts #thanks for the ask!!#sorry if I went a little hard there #a little uhhh Too serious #but I am genuinely a little depressed about how we settle for corporate safety as the epitomy of greatness #mechanical perfection as sufficient in itself #and I don't know how we meaningfully fight this #the structures of power comprised of people who are terrified of their own soul and the capitalist safety they will forever cling to

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flecks-of-stardust · 2 years

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A Language Based Analysis of Hollow Knight

If you know me, you likely know I have a marked interest in language and talk about it a lot, even going to the lengths of making conlangs for my fanfic. If you don’t, hello! I’m a budding linguistics student and I love language. It’s an aspect of worldbuilding that I think a lot of people neglect, and particularly for Hollow Knight, there’s a lot that can be inferred about the world from how the characters in the game interact. A lot of this is, admittedly, Team Cherry handwaving aspects of worldbuilding and leaving things vague, but it’s still fun to try to piece things together from the scraps we’re given. In this post, I’m going to discuss what the language used in Hollow Knight and how it’s used reveals about the overall area of the broader world outside of Hallownest. Other linguistics students and language lovers, feel free to chime in! I’d love to hear from you and if you have anything to correct me on, please do!

One big thing to know about languages before we get into the thick of it: they become muddied more than some people may think. One specific region will generally speak one or more languages, sometimes designating an ‘official’ language, but what is less obvious is that within one language, there can be a lot of variation, even within specific dialects. It’s also not uncommon for languages to slowly blend and shift into each other over a specific area; in some areas that mainly speak one language, the further you go in one direction, the more of a second language will slip in, until the speakers you find only know the second language. (If I’m not misremembering, this happens with the UK; the further north you go, the more Scots you hear, until everyone is speaking only Scots and not English.) It’s not often as discrete as people like to think about, but this language blending can reveal a lot about the influences and presences of those who enforce the language.

Another thing is that English is, relatively speaking, rather odd as a language. It’s part of the West Germanic family (which includes languages like German, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, etc), but it has a lot of influences from French (and more so now with how technology has enabled people to interact at a rate never before seen!). Part of this is due to the Norman invasion of 1066. The local Englishmen were forced to learn and speak French, which is a Romance/Italic language with different language conventions. Over time, these differences affected the conventions of English, resulting in (part of) the mess of the language we know today. For anyone who’s ever laughed at other languages for having grammatical gender, English used to have them too! It just lost them after the Norman invasion, because the grammatical genders for the Italic languages did not align with those of the West Germanic languages, and things got so muddy and confusing that they ended up falling out of use entirely.

All this is to say that influence from other countries and languages often has a much more profound effect in multiple areas of language and communication than most people realize. Lots of English words related to laws and government are from French, as are the words beef and pork (which used to be only affordable to the high class). English lost grammatical gender entirely due to French influence, and no one now knows this unless they specifically go looking for this information! There are other aspects too; the general assumption that someone knows English or should know English is thanks to its global proliferation. You likely wouldn’t assume some random stranger knew Japanese if you’re not in Japan, particularly if they don’t look like they’re Japanese, but you hear a lot about people demanding someone else to speak in English, especially in the US.

Which brings me to my first point: everyone in the game assumes Ghost understands them. Not once do they ever stop and question if Ghost can understand the language they’re speaking. They acknowledge that Ghost does not respond, but they clearly assume that Ghost knows what they’re saying. Even Hornet does this, and I think we can all agree that she is not the type to mince words and waste her breath going off on monologues to someone who has no idea what she’s saying.

This observation can be run the other way too: Ghost knows the language spoken in Hallownest. There are characters who never leave Hallownest, like Hornet (presumably), Myla, Leg Eater, Jiji, Midwife, etc, meaning that it’s likely their shared language is specific to Hallownest. Since Quirrel is also originally from Hallownest, it’s safe to assume that everyone in the game is speaking some dialect of the language spoken in Hallownest (referred to as Hallownestian from here on out for brevity). Ghost clearly understands them all. I have seen some interpretations of how this might work, all of which draw on the fact that they are a godling. Magic is likely not constrained by language, and it’s a pretty reasonable assumption that Ghost understands everything said to them simply because they’re magical. (Then again, Mister Mushroom’s existence kind of argues against this...) But outside of this assumption, it’s unlikely anyone ever taught them Hallownestian. This means they must have learned it somewhere beyond Hallownest, during their travels outside of it.

Which brings up a third observation: Hallownestian is spoken in areas outside of Hallownest. This isn’t a particularly surprising fact, considering how famous Hallownest apparently was. Comparing it to English, which is spoken near-globally, it’s safe to assume Hallownestian had similar influence as Hallownest’s fame grew. Languages often do spread outward like this, in part from immigration and in part from those in power forcing people to learn their language. Generally, the more speakers of a language that are spread out over many areas, the more powerful the area that it originates from is, relatively speaking anyway. If you conquer more regions than other people, you likely have forced all of them to speak your language, and so there are more speakers of your language. If you’re a powerful trade hub or knowledge hub, you probably attracted a lot of people who subsequently learned your language and then taught it to their families and friends.

The more important thing to note is that Hallownestian continued being spoken after Hallownest fell to ruin, and it implies that the general populace in areas outside of Hallownest picked up the language. They possibly began using it just as much, if not more than, the other languages they knew there, enough that Ghost gained enough Hallownestian proficiency to understand everyone you can talk to in the game. They also learned the script too, since they’re able to read the signs in the game. Many languages are only spoken, so the fact that the script spread outside of Hallownest as well is a testament to its fame.

And, we know for certain that there are areas outside of Hallownest (despite what it may try to say) because characters like Cloth, Tiso, Cornifer and Iselda, Ze’mer, and Zote exist. They must have come from somewhere that wasn’t Hallownest, and they definitely spoke other languages. Ze’mer’s speech is evidence enough for that, but Lemm further confirms this (“It's long hard work translating the many languages of the bugs that explore these caverns.”). It’s not clear how far all of them had to travel to reach Hallownest, but from what the White Lady says about the delicate flower (“Far it travelled to reach this place, brought by one beloved, fair knight of lands serene.”), it seems Ze’mer’s kingdom may have been the furthest away from Hallownest. Which makes sense; Ze’mer’s speech is the most obviously different from everyone else you’re able to talk to. It’s likely she learned the language after arriving, instead of learning it in her previous kingdom.

This all points to a fourth observation: Hallownestian spread quite far out, relative to where Hallownest itself is (but this spread has a definite range). How is it that Tiso and Cloth both speak Hallownestian despite seemingly not coming from the same place? How can Ghost understand them both? Magic aside, this would have to be due to Hallownestian’s prominence in both kingdoms Tiso and Cloth come from, as well as the kingdoms that Ghost traveled to. Tiso and Cloth and the other travelers you meet are clearly fluent in Hallownestian too, and that can only be true if they were able to explicitly learn it, perhaps in school or from a massive community of speakers. Anyone who’s learned a second language should know how difficult it is to learn said language when you’re not able to speak to other people who know the language; the travelers’ fluency more than implies that there were many, many people who spoke Hallownestian where they came from.

The specific range can be half-inferred based on Quirrel and Hornet’s dialogue. You probably wouldn’t assume some random stranger on the street speaks English unless you’re in an area that has a lot of English speakers. Quirrel defaults to addressing Ghost in Hallownestian despite acknowledging them as a traveler, and he does the same to Hornet in the comic where she and him fight briefly. Hornet, in turn, does the same to him: she actually initiates the dialogue, challenging him from high up, speaking in Hallownestian (and it likely is Hallownestian considering it’s not likely she’s left the kingdom). There are two possible explanations for this, the first of which is that Hornet and Quirrel are choosing to address who they’re speaking to in Hallownestian based on the knowledge that anyone who is in the area has likely learned the language beforehand. It’s fairly common to learn a few phrases of the language of the country you’re visiting, so it’s not that far fetched of a thought. The other possibility is that neither of them know of an area that doesn’t speak Hallownestian. It’s similar to how even in generally non-English dominant areas, you’ll still find people trying to talk to you in English. Its presence as a lingua franca is so powerful it’s a decent bet to guess that some random person on the street knows the language. Hallownestian evidently has something comparable. Considering that Quirrel is arguably one of the most well traveled people you can talk to in the game, it’s pretty hard to imagine another situation where both he and Hornet would default to addressing someone in Hallownestian. And even if it isn’t a lingua franca, the range of influence Hallownest had must have been absolutely gigantic for them to do this.

And this brings up some speculation on my part: Ghost never left the area of influence of Hallownest. If they had, then it wasn’t for long, and they must have returned over and over again to the general area. Otherwise they couldn’t have learned Hallownestian, since some kingdoms, like Ze’mer’s previous kingdom, do not natively know the language. To be fair, they’re never given the room to demonstrate their understanding of a language besides Hallownestian as there is no other language spoken in the game (Mister Mushroom excluded). Ze’mer’s speech doesn’t fully count as evidence against this, if only because she is speaking a mixture of her native tongue and Hallownestian, though we can infer from Ghost’s interactions with her that they do not understand the words of her native tongue.

You could argue that the Grimm Troupe’s existence implies Ghost knows more than one language, and I honestly cannot push back against that. But with how much they have traveled around, it’s also extremely likely they, too, speak many languages, and they happened to use one that Ghost understands. It’s also likely they already knew Hallownestian, and are simply conversing with them in the shared language of this area. And on top of that, Grimm is a god, so he could be utilizing that connection with Ghost to speak more directly. Really anything works; there’s not enough information about the Troupe’s adventures outside of Hallownest for me to say more.

With the information I have now, I can’t definitively say if Ghost ever left the area of influence of Hallownest. Even then, the influence Hallownest had was massive considering how many travelers you can meet and talk to who know Hallownestian, and it seems to have been, or still is, a lingua franca. I think it says a lot too if Ghost did leave the area, but returned enough that they still learned Hallownestian. Perhaps they knew, deep down, what they were made to do?

At the end of all of this, the final answer to a lot of these questions is that Hollow Knight is, at its core, a video game made by an indie team. Team Cherry simply did not have the time to even give languages thought, so anything I’ve said above is likely just coincidence and speculation. Still, it’s fun to speculate! I’ve been thinking on and off about this a lot, and I finally committed to writing this up. I hope it’s been a fun read, and again, if anyone has stuff to add, I’d love to hear it!

#hollow knight #linguistics #yes this counts #language <3 #some things may be phrased awkwardly but meh #i've been writing this for close to two hours now just take it #edited slightly to hopefully be more clear rip

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the-yuri-librarian · 3 months

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Can I ask, why do you love WLW romance better than Het romance? What makes them better? I did not mean anything negative, and I know everyone have their own like and dislike but I want to know your thoughts....

Also what do you think that made Asian WLW (GL manga/manhwa/manhua) romances different than western WLW romances?

This is a very good question on both fronts!

Answering the first part is easy: I prefer WLW relationships because I'm a lesbian. That's sort of all there is to it? Like, on some level, I have only been reading WLW novels for the past several years (and WLW comics since Sept '23), because hetero relationships in fiction have sort of dominated culture my whole life? I can't name a movie or a book series off hand from my childhood/teen years that did not contain a straight relationship. I would genuinely have to think about it. But, when I graduated from grad school for the first time and started to connect with reading on a level I hadn't since I was a kid-early teen, I made this very conscious decision to focus really really heavily on sapphic fiction, even more so than trans fiction even though I am trans, too. I think part of this is because I just wanted to see myself represented in the works I am reading. Another part of this is I relate more to sapphic romances. For all my life, I have only ever loved women as a woman, and that makes straight romances feel somewhat foreign to me? I think maybe it's because the way relationships are talked about in queer culture versus the way relationships are talked about in straight culture; it feels very different, though I don't have an example offhand to point to. On top of that, there is also a lot of historical precedent for lesbians feeling like their sexuality and their gender identity are somewhat meshed or intersected (if you want to know more I'd have to do like actual research lol), and I think I definitely feel that. The lesbian label is really important for me, and I think that importance draws me to WLW fiction

In terms of what makes eastern and western comics/yuri/sapphic romances different, I think that you could write an entire dissertation on this (but I'll try not to lol). Now, I am by no means an expert on Japanese or Korean cultural studies, in fact I am far from that, but I think the way the romances play out really highlights the way their cultures function differently from cultures in the west. Firstly, I think that eastern cultures place a much higher focus on cultural expectations. I would not say that eastern cultures are necessarily more conservative than western cultures (I mean, just look at any news coming out of the US, we're practically a theocracy). Instead, I would say that people living in eastern cultures are more bound by their culture. For example: in the US, or a similar western culture, it is generally ok to be gay in the 2010s and 2020s. From my understanding, this is also the case in Korea and Japan, but there is more cultural push back. I think this reality is represented in sapphic romance stories from the two places well. Look at any fiction featuring a lesbian main character coming out of America: their sexuality is never treated like some weird thing (unless the story is trying to realistically represent discrimination); instead, they just are gay. And, when a character is beginning to realize she might be a lesbian, she might have to adjust her view of herself, but it's really no big deal. On the other hand, look at Japanese yuri, especially high school stories: there is almost universally a moment where one of the characters will be like "but we're both girls!" to which the other character will be like "it's fine." I think this moment is included in those stories because the mangaka are consciously pushing back on the idea that it's wrong to be gay. A really good example of this can be seen in Rei's "it's ok to be gay monologue" in I'm in Love with the Villainess. In American fiction, something like that would likely feel unnecessary (though, for the record, I think American TV shows and movies are at the point where such a monologue is necessary, but that's a different story).

Another example can be seen in the way eastern comics treat cunnilingus. This is not a universal thing, but one trend that I've noticed in the more NSFW or smutty comics I've read is that, often, when a woman is about to go down on another woman, the one getting eaten out will protest like "no, not there" or "no, I'm not clean," and I think that this too is indicative of the ways women are entangled by cultural expectations in the east. In an America comic or novel, this would not be treated with the same hesitancy. But, in eastern cultures, there seems to almost be this expectation that the women turns down getting eaten out, only to relent and accept it when their lover insists.

I'm not sure if any of that makes sense, but it's the best I got without doing real research. Also, again, I am not an expert, so take everything I just said with about a tablespoon of salt!

#long post #yuri #yuri posting #lesbians #ask #i may end up doing research on this and making a more formal post about it #sapphic #lgbtq culture

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theclearblue · 1 month

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Have you ever had hard time to enter a fandom that is your whole world in your childhood? So I first watch One Piece when I was 6 about 20 years ago, and I really love it (have the tshirt, shoes, manga, etc). And I followed it until I finished high school. But then I suddenly lose interest. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate it, just don't want to enter to that fandom again. My anime/manga moots now, don't even know that I used to love One Piece.

What do you think is wrong with me? I still watch the new movie if it came out in the cinema and I don't mind to know the update or spoiler of the story, I just don't want to watch the series or read the manga again. I'm weird, right?

I found your blog because of your JJK posts (now I'm into JJK and have at least 4 ships that I really love) also from you I know that Law got turned to a woman (like really)...

And if you aks me, I have ships (mostly mlm and wlw) from any fandom of manga and anime that I consume, except if those series are from my childhood. Like, I can't seem to ship Zoro and Sanji or any other character from OP because in my mind they are all platonic. But you gave me anime/manga that have a little bit bromance, and I'll ship them of course.

After talk it out, I must look really strange to you right? Sorry for this silly ask. Thanks for your blog, I love them. Also, thank you for your anime/manga recs. As BokuAka shipper that last ask of yours really made me happy that they are at least canon-ish....

I don't really think this is weird at all because this happened to me with a different fandom lol. It wasn't a show, but from ages 11-18/19 I was OBSESSED with kpop. I bought the albums and the merch when I could, my original tumblr blog was an Exo blog with about 900ish followers, it was all I listened to for years. And then one day I just stopped. I certainly was sick of kpop fans but nothing major happened for me to lose interest, I just kind of moved on. It happens. And while I still listen to some kpop, it's all the old stuff that I used to like, I don't go and venture out for new music or interact with any fandom with it now. It's the exact same situation you described I think, I don't hate it! But I have zero interest to rejoin the fandom because I do have issues with it and any kind of interaction is just for me at this point. (The next part is about One Piece specifically so I'm gonna put a cut here cause I wrote a lot lmao)

In regards to One Piece specifically, I think I understand where you're coming from. One, it seems like a lot of fans have lost interest at some point (usually between Fishman Island-Dressrosa, or maybe even up to WCI) and some pick it back up, and some don't. And I get that! I think I came into it at the perfect time where even if there is an arc I don't like as much, I always had Wano and Egghead to look forward to, and the end is now in sight. And reading week to week is always going to be a different experience than blitzing through the series like I did. Fortunately Egghead is amazing week to week, this is some of Oda's best work, but if I had to read week to week during, say, Punk Hazard or Dressrosa, yeah I would have complaints and most likely lose interest lmao. I don't know if this was your experience, but you definitely aren't the only one to have lost interest.

The fandom...yeah I have issues lol, particularly with fans from the West. I went to Japan this summer (before starting One Piece) and looking back it stood out to me that One Piece is EVERYWHERE and it's something that everyone loves regardless of age and gender. There were One Piece themed stores I went into where old ladies and middle aged men and little girls were all clearly invested in this series, and from what I've heard the consensus in Japan is that this series is enjoyed by families. I bring that up because the conversation around One Piece is OVERWHELMINGLY dominated by cishet men, usually in their mid 20s to mid 30s, and it shows. I think it is starting to shift to where there's more diversity in the fandom (or at least seen diversity) but man does it have a long way to go. I'm not impressed by how the fandom has reacted to trans characters, in particular Yamato, a trans male character in Wano where you have people still to this day scream about how he is a woman and will die on that hill. I think the whitewashing should of started being a conversation ten years ago instead of the last year or two. I think the issue of sexism within One Piece is complex, and it's not afforded the nuance it deserves from either side. I've stated multiple times I'm not a fan of powerscaling, but oh god is it terrible here, where it has somehow become prioritized for so many fans, even if it doesn't make sense from a narrative or character perspective. And maybe it's an overall media literacy problem, and I really don't mean to come off as a snob here because I certainly don't pick up on everything, but it's insane how many fans do not pick up on the core themes of the series, and just like it for...the fights. All of this to say, I have frustration as well with this fandom.

With the shipping, just always remember that they are ultimately headcanons, and you never have to agree with a headcanon to enjoy something, even if the headcanon is popular. One Piece can be tricky because I very much understand the desire to view things strictly as platonic, and in fact in canon this is what I want, I don't want any of my ships to be confirmed lmao. Where I get hung up a little bit though is that I think multiple characters in the series are queer coded, whether intentional or not. Of course there are the intentional ones like Iva and Bon Clay and Kiku, but I do genuinely believe a lot of the strawhats are queer coded as well, in particular Luffy, Nami, Zoro, Sanji, and Franky. I would be happy to expand on that more in another ask if you would like. But with these characters being queer coded, or at the very least they can be read that way, shipping seems like a natural progression for many fans, even if there is no romantic subtext to speak of. So all in all, I totally understand why shipping is a no go for you with One Piece, but this is my general thought process as I do ship some characters in the series.

TLDR anon is that I don't think you're strange at all, we gain and lose interest in things all of the time, and your concerns with the fandom and the series as a whole are valid I think, I've thought about a lot of the same stuff you have listed here even though I am a big fan.

#also ty for liking my blog and my bokuaka post i'm blushing omg <3 #man wouldnt be crazy if i built this whole blog around jjk and op and bokuaka is what im known for lmaooo #asks

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dontmatterblog · 4 months

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Gray out right says that he doesn’t like her and rejects her.

Not to mention the fact that when Lyon is hitting on Juvia, he backs off after being fully rejected, and during the Edolas arc when Edolas!Gray continuously hits on the uninterested Edolas!Juvia, it’s seen as weird and creepy, and he isn’t even a fraction as bad as Earthland!Juvia is to Earthland!Gray.

Many shippers were ready to fight Lyon for having the audacity to like Juvia when she said no, even after he backs off. Because No means No, and he needs to respect her wishes, which he did.

What they need to learn is that No means No REGARDLESS of gender.

Gray. Said. No. And there is nothing shippers or Juvia can do to change that.

As I’ve said before it’s okay if you don’t like them but baby they can only do what Mashima writes. That’s my whole point. You go into spaces on twitter where you can mute them. It’s fine you don’t like them but since it bothers you so badly you might want to mute Juvia, NaLu, Gruvia, and anything else that bothers you.

Gray didn’t like Juvia at first and I can admit that but Mashima the writer has always stated that he loved them as a ship so it was obvious they would get together. I’m not trying to make you love them. Gray did say no in the beginning but Mashima have stated in interviews and questions at the end of chapters who he was obsessed with for Gray. AGAIN ITS OKAY IF YOU DONT LIKE JUVIA OR GRUVIA.

I’m sorry you have been in terrible situations where Juvia’s character remind you of real people but Juvia isn’t real. She can only do what Mashima writes nothing more nothing less. Mashima has also stated during one of his lives that Juvia might not be understood outside of Japan because she is a girl they call a girl in love. He said it’s very popular in Japan and the reason why fans love her. He also said that fans in the west might not get it and that’s okay. It’s okay if you don’t get Juvia’s character but Juvia didn’t manipulate, force, and do anything to Gray because she’s a character and the only way for her to do any of that stuff is for Mashima to write it.

I think the issue you are having is that you applying real life to it too much. It’s okay. They not real and can’t hurt you. You might want to leave the fandom and just enjoy your graylu pocket of the fandom with fanart and fanfic because it appears to me that it’s consuming you. AGAIN YOU DO NOT HAVE TO LIKE GRUVIA OR JUVIA. Just giving suggestions.

Gray said no in the beginning is correct and I agree with you on that but I’m an adult with my own little family only 28 and I don’t see the way you see it. I can’t change the way you see it no more than you can change the way I view the anime. I just don’t see none of what Juvia doing besides the stalking as anything bad. Yes she would denounce her love to Gray every chance she got and call other women love rival but those moments are suppose to be comedic relief. It’s also okay if you didn’t find them funny. I don’t find them funny either. I live in America and understand that Japan’s sense of humor is different from mine.

I’m praying you be alright at the end of the day. I just want you to see that Juvia is not a real person. You speak of her often as if she’s a living breathing human doing these things. I hate Mest but I don’t have to shout it to the rooftops and treat it like Mest is truly a person out here liking little girls. That’s my point. I agree with some of what you say especially about Gray telling her no in the beginning but Mashima didn’t take Gray’s as serious as you take them. If there’s anyone you gonna be upset with about how Juvia is it should be Mashima and not a character drawn on paper or digitally.

Also I know you don’t read 100YQ but Gray has declared his love for Juvia multiple times in the manga and Mashima has stated that he is growing Gray emotionally from the cold and closed off person he was in the original. Just fyi.

Again my post wasn’t to get you to like them but to realize you are mad at a character that is written by an author when it’s all the author doing.

Have a good day! Thank you.

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apollos-boyfriend · 2 years

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May i ask you to talk more about gayru? Or any subculture

okay so. like. i mainly know a lot about gyaru, lolita, and kei (largely decora kei, but i’ve also recently gotten into angora kei ^_^). so for people that don’t know, basically like every harajuku subculture is a direct reaction to japanese societal norms. and while most of the subcultures are open to all genders, they’re largely founded and popularized by young women and teenage girls!! largely as a direct attack against the sexualization and demand for girls to grow up and mature at a young age. which is very ironic to an extent, because a lot of westerners see women in harajuku fashion and instantly rush to say they’re sexualizing young girls, for some fucking reason, when the movements were created for the complete OPPOSITE reason. (it might be because lolita fashion is called, well, lolita, but that’s to no fault of the subculture. lolita fashion didn’t name itself, like many other subcultures!!) you’ve probably seen gyaru fashion before if you’ve been on the internet for a while. gyaru is the umbrella term for the subculture, as in reality, there’s at least a dozen different variants of the style. while it also tackles the issue of teen girls being sexualized (which was a later advancement, and not necessarily why the culture was founded) it largely battles japanese beauty standards!! in general, having pale skin and dark hair is seen as peak beauty in japan. to combat this, gyarus tend to tan and bleach their hair, to anything between a light brown to full bleach blonde!

^^ an example! i’m pretty sure this is ganguro, which was SUPER popular in the early 2000s-ish, and what most people think of gyaru as because of its popularity. as i said though, there’s at LEAST a dozen gyaru sub genres. my favorite personally is gyaru mama, which is when a gyaru has a child, but still refuses to give up the lifestyle!! they typically dress their baby in gyaru (gyaru-o, if the kid is a boy) in a style that matched the mom’s ^_^ not only is it a direct fuck you to the idea that you have to abandon your inner child/ambitions when you become a parent, but the gyaru mama parenting style is ALSO a direct combat against japan’s societal norms for raising children.

as much as grunge and punk are meant to be a statement to society in the west, things like kei and yami kawaii (an anti-kawaii subculture) are statements to society in japan!! and, much like our western scenes, they’re MUCH more than just the fashion. a subculture is just that, after all, a culture. you can look the part all you want, but if you don’t believe in the core ideologies, you’re doing nothing more than just playing dress up ^^

#muse talk #kreacherofvixen #i. did not realize how much i typed. i deeply apologize #i love harajuku fashion man. so many japanese subcultures are so deeply tied into the idea of young women standing up for themselves #and against their sexualization #it’s so kick ass and cool and inspirational #i desperately want to get actually Into the lolita scene one day! or at least ouji (male lolita)#i just need to get the funds stored away 😅#a lot of people thing lolita (and other subcultures) are expensive #bc of angelic pretty and whatnot #but it can be super affordable!#i’m just not quite there yet

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thehmn · 4 years

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I used to watch my brother play the Metal Gear Solid games and it’s actually really interesting to look at Hideo Kojima’s games in the context of how homosexuality is viewed in Japan.

I’m not going to speculate on Kojima’s own sexuality, I’ll leave that to himself, but his games are famous for being very horny, homoerotic and having a ridiculously high number of bisexual male characters. People will point out that they’re all villains, but that’s just the explicitly bisexual characters. His two main characters, Snake from Metal Gear Solid and Sam from Death Stranding, are also implied to not be straight.

This is where Japanese culture and the extensive lore of Kojima’s works comes in.

Homosexuality is taboo in the west and Japan for different reasons. In the west it’s seen as sinful, but in Japan it’s seen as disruptive. Don’t make a fuss. Don’t call attention to yourself in any way. Don’t mess with the status quo. Most queer people choose not to come out to their families for this reason. And to make matters worse, even if a small majority of Japanese people are in favor of queer people having rights the government is very conservative and it’s even illegal to depict homosexuality positively in some parts of Japan.

So what does Kojima do to appease his government and the culture of his people? He does what people did in Hollywood in the 30’s and make the explicitly bisexual characters villains and make his heroes covertly bisexual.

Kojima always had an interest in sexuality and gender. In high school he wrote a story where all women succumbed to an illness, leaving the men unsure of how to continue. Remember, at the time the majority of women in Japan quit their jobs when they got married and took care of their husband and children. So who was supposed to take care of the house and their sons? Could men just stop craving intimacy or would they have to turn to each other? And how would they make more babies? I’ll get back to that.

One of the most famous scenes in Metal Gear happens when Snake disguise himself as Ivan, the lover of Volgin. Volgin walks up to what he assumed to be his lover and grabs his crotch, looks confused, grabs him again and asks “Who are you? I know the major better than anyone else” Volgin and Ivan are undoubtedly villains, but their love for each other is surprisingly the most human thing about them. If Snake puts on Ivan’s mask during his bossbattle with Volgin, Volgin will hesitate at first, then double his attacks in anger, but also cry because he’s trying to kill a man with his boyfriend’s face.

Snake/Otacon is the most heavily implied relationship in the whole series that hasn’t been confirmed. In the first game Snake could end up with Otacon at the end, and since then they’ve moved in together, raised a child together, talked at length about how they taught each other to love, teased each other about their libido, and the list goes on. They also notably get call-backs to two other canon romantic couples; Raiden and Rosemary when Otacon tells Snake that he won’t be let back inside before he takes a shower (Rosemary wouldn’t let Raiden back in because he got pee on him), and Volgin and Ivan when Otacon says he knows Snake better than anyone else. My point being, Snake and Otacon are very heavily implied to be a bisexual couple.

Then there’s Death Stranding. The game is definitely written by a more mature Kojima who has been hanging out with a lot of Americans. His view of sex and love is more nuanced and he understands that there’s a difference between sexual and romantic orientation. We still got Higgs, a flamboyant villain who acts very predatory and is heavily implied to be bisexual, though never confirmed, and Sam who’s implied to be asexual (he has an Ace of Spades sticker on his bike) and biromantic, and we get our first confirmed good bisexual character, Die-Hardman.

Kojima never got to play around with gender much in Metal Gear Solid, but he made up for that in Death Standing. Remember that story he wrote in high school? We see a lot of inspiration from that here. The solution the men came up with for having healthy babies in the story was to have men carry pods around on their stomachs where the fetus could grow in the most natural way possible.

There’s still women in Death Stranding but there’s a lot of men carrying babies around on their stomachs, men forming family unions, and the main character Sam acts more like a stereotypical mother than father. There’s literally a scene where Deadman puts a hand on Sam’s pod like it’s a pregnant belly and basically asks him “The three of us are a family, aren’t we?”

Sam later tries to give the baby to a woman, Fragile, but she only sees it as babysitting and gives it back, so Sam gives it to Deadman who declares it “our little one”.

By the end of the game the three of them are seen together, depicted as two parents holding their child. Throughout the game people are constantly trying to hug and touch Sam but in the end the only person who gets a hug is Deadman.

It’s also worth noting that in the universe of Death Stranding Sam and Deadman are believed to be a couple before they actually are. Deadman made sure of that so no one would question why they spend so much time together.

There will no doubt be more bisexual men in Kojima’s next game, and I’m curious to see if there’ll be any development in how openly he depictes queer characters. He’s a middle aged man so no matter what his own sexuality might be I don’t expect him to easily shake the expectations of Japanese society off, but he has started hanging out with a lot of Danes, most notably Nicolas Winding Refn who despite making extremely violent movies is very open minded and has, when asked, been very honest about his own sexuality (to spare you the pain of digging though Danish interviews, he’s a straight, slightly bi-curious man with an interest in BDSM, but who’s also satisfied leaving a lot of his fantasies to his imagination because his movies gives him an outlet for a lot of it).

You can see a lot of Scandinavian/Nordic influences in Death Stranding and I’d be surprised if Nicolas didn’t expose Kojima, intentionally or unintentionally, to the Scandinavian view of homosexuality. I can best describe it with a news report I once saw on national television. Parents were worried about a dangerous road that their children had to cross every day to get to school but the government wasn’t doing anything about it. The parents they interviewed were a gay couple but they were treated exactly like any other worried parents. No fuss, no spectacle. Please think of the safety of these parents’ children.

I can imagine that approach would go over very well with a middle aged Japanese man who clearly wants queer people to be able to live happy, fulfilling lives with families and children but doesn’t seem to want to upset his society.

Other people have pointed out that Kojima and Nicolas seem to inspire each other a lot and have taken an interest in each other’s cultures, and Nicolas was the first person to announce publicly that he’d be in Kojima’s next game, so I’m really interested in seeing what that will do, if anything, to how comfortable Kojima is with depicting his queer characters. Something certainly happened once he started socializing with a lot of Americans.

I am of course not saying Kojima is a saint who’s doing everything right, but he is an interesting guy to follow.

#hideo kojima #metal gear solid #death stranding #long post

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earthly--truth · 3 years

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What I believe in

These are my beliefs as someone who aligns with democratic socialism and progressivism. Feel free to critique it, challenge it, even just a few sections, whatever, but this is what I believe will make the world a better place, because people (and animals) deserve to live the best possible lives they can live with the only chance at life they got. This is going to be super general and long, and not get into nearly everything, but I hope it sheds a positive light on leftism.

Strong unions so that workers (the majority of people in society) have the ability have better footing to negotiate better wages, work hours, vacation days, benefits, etc. I also believe that in instances where it’s pragmatically viable that there should be a push for more worker co-op’s, in which every employee has a stake in the company they work at, and the ability to give their input (all companies should strive for more democracy). Both of these contribute to healthier, happier, and, and better payed people.

Raising the minimum wage in the U.S to $15 an hour. The current wage of $7.25 is way too low. It’s just not a livable wage. There’s a reason why McDonald’s and Walmart are called corporate welfare queens, and it’s because they’re employees require welfare to survive, despite being the biggest corporations on the planet with multi-billionaire CEO’s. The richest in society should also pay more in taxes.

Stop investing so much in the American military, cut it by a third if you can. (Firstly this frees up a lot of money for other things) Get the military out of the middle east, and create other more peaceful avenues to ensure it doesn’t crumble like every single time the military pulls out and doesn’t try to actually fix the mess they created. The people in the middle east deserve to be able to rebuild and they’ll need help to do that (just not the type of help where america installs their own leaders).

Healthcare should be universal, paid for by taxes. Every developed nation is capable of doing it. Many developing countries are doing it. Americans pay more in taxes for healthcare than so many other countries, yet a trip to the hospital still can put you in debt for the rest of your life. That is inhumane, and people shouldn’t have to choose between crippling debt and their health.

There’s also an argument to be made for free/way cheaper university, since countries like Canada or America force people to get a degree if they want to live a decent life, yet in order to do that you have to pay $15,000 a year for university. A system like that either forces people to skip out on uni, or again go into major debt. If Europe can figure it out, I think the U.S and Canada can figure it out too.

Black Lives Matter. To be more specific, I want police/criminal justice/prison reform. I want police de-militarized and to stop acting so abusive towards to civilians and real justice for the police that do, I want an end on the war on drugs (this helps drug addicts get help and delivers a blow to gangs and the cartel). I want an end to mass incarceration and laws that make it easier to throw people in jail for years for basically nothing. I want an end to for profit prisons. I want an end to the policy of retribution rather than rehabilitation for inmates (countries who rehabilitate are way more successful at non-returning inmates). I want an end to treating prisoners like slaves so corporations can get cheap labour. I also want the government to actually start caring about the poorest communities, many of which are predominantly black and latino (in cities anyways). (Also the indigenous in Canada). Better infrastructure, better public works programs. These all contribute to the proliferation of these communities and helps lessen the potential for criminality by making their lives better.

The dismantling of gender norms and roles, and de-stigmatization of LGBTQ+ people. I want people to be whoever they want to be. For far too long we have expected men and women to act a certain way. Women have come a long way, but there are still remnants of the old way of looking at things. We still have a lot of social stigma about how women should look, and that they are not worth even paying attention to if they aren’t conventionally attractive. We still have social stigma about sexuality and sex work. We hyper sexualize women in the media, yet shame women as sluts if they have a lot of sex. We shame women who choose abortion as murderers, yet don’t offer any support for the mother once the child has arrived. On top of that, the positions of power are still predominantly very old men. I also believe in helping men. Men are lonelier, men are increasingly staying sexless (not by choice), men are getting more suicidal. I want to address this two ways. One, by tackling toxic masculinity (not masculinity itself, just the bad parts). TM is telling men to man up and not to cry, TM is telling men not to act feminine or gay. TM is telling men to bottle up their emotions and resolve their problems through violence. The second way to address this is through my beliefs about workers. Men are the most suicidal in countries where there is a heavy work culture, like Japan and South Korea. Where they can’t have lives, and live to make money for the company they work at. That isn’t good.

When it comes to LGBTQ+ people, we need more positive representation in the media. We need people to see gay, trans, and non-binary people as normal people. When it comes to trans people specifically, we need to end the constant wars against them. Whether you’re talking about bathrooms, or sports, or children/teens receiving trans affirming healthcare. Let trans people be the gender that they say there are in the places they want to be, and allow them to receive the healthcare they need which is just the overwhelming medical consensus. This, combined with more supportive parents. all goes a long way to reducing the suicide rate amonst trans people.

The proliferation of the developing world. I want developing countries to be more autonomous, and to stop being under the boot of western corporations. I want an end to sweatshop labour or borderline sweatshop labour. I want the west to stop treating these actual people like their robots for pennies to produce our ungodly amounts of junk, and to actually pay these people decent wages. I want the world bank to stop giving money in an exploitative way to poor nations so that they cave to western business interests. These are people, human beings, and they deserve to develop and live good lives just like us. I also want them to fight for democracy in their countries.

Environmentalism. To go off the last section, 100 Corporations are contributing 71% of greenhouse gases. That needs to change. Corporations are participating ungodly amounts of devastations to eco-systems and the atmosphere. Ecosystems destroyed, and the exacerbation of the climate crises. I want a green and blue earth, and that can start by a) changing to green energy as much as humanly possible; solar, wind, and even nuclear (and whatever we come up with in the future) are far better than the fossil fuels we use now, which we’ll run out of anyways. And second we need to hold corporations accountable for destroying the planet. If we don’t do this, we risk the climate crises getting really bad. Oceans rising which will flood coastlines, creating millions of refugees, more periods of extreme dry (no water/bush fires) and extreme cold (look at what happened to texas). Something needs to be done about it.

Finally, veganism, for many reasons. One, the switch to veganism will be a big contributor to saving the planet. Whether you’re talking about the devastation we do to places like the Amazon Rain forest and other ecosystems to clear the way for animal farming, or whether you’re talking about reducing emissions. Most emissions and waste from agriculture are from the production phase of animal farming. So much food, water, and energy is wasted by giving it to billions of animals that we purposefully breed into existence, then slaughter, rinse and repeat, every single year, when we could just grow food and give water to people and skip out the middle man (think about how many people are hungry and without water in the world).

Philosophically, it is also wrong to kill a living creature that desires to live, that is able to connect with other living things and it surrounding, to form bonds. A cow, pig, chicken, lamb, sheep, are no different than a dog, cat, or rabbit, and they should not be killed, exploited, and tortured (confinement, abusive conditions in industrial farms) for pleasure. I know it’s pleasure for most people, because vegans are living proof that you can live happy and healthy lives without animal products. Vegans are statistically healthier than non-vegans, and we can get all the nutrients we need, even on an inexpensive diet. There are exceptions of course. A very small portion of people literally cannot eat plants and can only eat meat, and the developing world doesn’t have the same access to vegan products as the developed world does. Those people are valid, but many many people can make the switch and they should, especially in the developed world

All I see from this is making the world better. Hopefully you can too.

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smolstarthief · 3 years

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Persona 5/Persona 5 Strikers: Pro-Police or Anti-Police?

Hoo boy... So this honestly has been a LONG time coming on my end because I have seen so much of that debate on social media (Twitter namely) and I can see the points of BOTH sides but there have been moments where it just got out of hand... Especially whenever people tried to put in a more grey/nuanced take only to be slammed and taken out of context. Even repeatedly mentioning the interrogation at the beginning of P5 which, I will admit has gotten tiresome. At least for me, I do still feel for Joker and I wished the game acknowledged his trauma more but there's a thing called, "beating a dead horse" and this is one along with "Haru says ACAB" in Strikers (which was done THREE TIMES in the same arc and it got annoying fast, like shut up already! We get it!). So, let's dive in a little bit:

MAJOR SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT!!!

Persona 5/Persona 5 Royal

Now let me just say I know! Police in Japan are just as bad if not worse than the West and I STILL hate the idea of Makoto wanting to become a cop for such naive reasons (especially with what happened to Sae, her own sister!)... But there are at least some of form of nuances sometimes and by that I mean, I can see what they were trying to do? I do agree that P5/P5S backpedaled SEVERELY by deciding to sweep issues under the rug after addressing them and not continuing from such. In fact I feel like it could have been a hell of a lot better. But P5 did something different compared to previous games and addresses the issues DIRECTLY right at the beginning of said game! It was tense and horrifying, but needed. Of course... They then sweep it under the rug and act like nothing traumatic happened to our protag which is NOT a good look at all and I'm still pissed off about it. In the main game's case, it's portrayed as more black and white with only a SMALL amount of nuance like that cop that was trying to help Futaba when she went out by herself and got lost (which people ignore entirely by the way). So I CAN see where people got the "anti-police" message from... But that's only the tip of the iceberg as it's ACTUALLY more about Systematic Corruption, not exactly or JUST police corruption. Namely in politics with Shido and the Conspiracy (which is apparently still somewhat around in Strikers until Owada's downfall) controlling everything all the way to law enforcement. The force had been basically under his payroll (including the corrupt SIU Director before his death) whether by force or not (mostly not in this case though). Now honestly, the police depicted there are undoubtedly rotten to the core save for a VERY SMALL handful (the cop that was trying to help Futaba which, again, gets ignored by several). Look at the interrogators who ruthlessly beat and drug a minor without any second thought or remorse for example. But again, the black and white narrative the game kept unwittingly doing ended up being to its detriment in a way. I'm not defending those assholes AT ALL! They deserved every punishment given to them! But for a game that goes on about grey morality... It doesn't quite deliver on that. Still though, it does emphasize that it's more of the fault of the whole corrupt system, not just one part of it. There needs to be change and reform which is what our MCs were trying to do in a way (more like inspiring change but still). In the end, it's all about the following:

Corruption and abuse of power.

Again the police depicted in this game were incompetent at best, corrupt at worse with very few silver linings. But it's not just them but rather the one person responsible for the whole mess. Who had them under his payroll? Who controlled them and by extension all of Tokyo? Who was willing to dispose of anyone who "outlives their usefulness" or is perceived as a threat to what he wants (including his own family)?

SHIDO AND BY EXTENSION THE CONSPIRACY

Bottom line: They are definitely a problem but it's not just them.

"But, Joker and his trauma?"

I definitely understand that and still do. I fully believe he has and still has trauma with the police. Easy! But... I do feel like people go too far with it sometimes. It's hard to explain but there have been moments where people either use it as a justification/argument against someone trying to provide a more nuanced view of things or... Dare I say, depict him like a "uwu soft traumatized boi." Like I said, it's hard to explain on my end so feel free to ignore it. Everyone deals with trauma differently so there is STRONG chance that I'm overanalyzing it. I just remember moments where I just feel a little, I guess annoyed? I'm not sure exactly but final thing: I understand what he went through and I can't imagine how long it would take to recover but I hope he DOES overcome it.

"Sae? Akechi?"

Yep, even though their jobs are different, they are by and large members of law enforcement no matter how you spin it. Both were broken in a way. Akechi is pretty easy to explain with how Shido negatively impacted his life but not much about Sae, who dealt with sexism/misogyny at her workplace along with the trauma of her father's (also a cop) death. She no doubt had some idealism only to be hit with the fact that she's gonna have to use underhanded/downright illegal tactics to get by and even rise up the ranks. She, therefore ended up (well, nearly) corrupted herself before coming to her senses. That's honestly one of the BIGGEST REASONS why I felt like Makoto joining the force to become a police commissioner isn't a good, even a downright naïve, idea. I honestly would have been somewhat fine with it if it weren't for that fact among other things. Regardless of her willpower, it will go south fast.

Now... Onto Strikers!

Persona 5 Strikers

Since the game came out and I started playing it, I still feel like the system is still beyond saving, especially when attempting to do it from the inside. But I don't mind the added nuances that P5 didn't do much of. It's still continuing the critiques, just shows more of what does happen within said system and even has an ACTUAL officer (Zenkichi) say, "Yeah, my job sucks, everyone's corrupt, there are much better ways to do things and make a change but not this. I'm only staying because I have a daughter to take care of and it's all I know. I'm no different from them." Was it all handled well? I wouldn't say "yes" (Joker's trauma is BARELY addressed at all of course) but a little better than what P5's narrative did which only addressed the issues but not exactly follow up on them. Now to be fair... In the system, regardless of where you live, any one within it who remotely tries to do something or speak against it either lose their jobs or even go "missing" irl. Those have happened and it's more proof that yeah, it's rotten to the core. There's no denying it but regardless, that's NOT what the game is about at all. At least that's what I feel about it as it's only PART of the narrative. I think Zenkichi puts it best here:

Speaking of Zenkichi... Oh boy... Now I definitely understand some of the criticisms with him but honestly, he was the best written (PT) character I've ever encountered! He was honestly the perfect representation of those that genuinely want to help and do good, only to be held back by an extremely harsh reality. It was already hinted at with Sae but here? It 100 percent confirms just how harsh and even cutthroat it can be if it could break someone's idealism so badly. Even Kaburagi of all people thinks the same thing Zenkichi said:

Then there's his past and it's a tragic one! But let's look more at the decisions he ended up making:

While it was no doubt done to protect his daughter, he ended making a selfish decision along with a selfless one (which was brilliant!) with not only allowing the cover up of his wife's death and denying justice for her, but also ruining an innocent person and their family's lives.

It's horrible, but also... There's a grey area/nuance as with the rest of his character. It was both understandable, but also wrong as he, as Akane's Shadow puts it:

He sacrificed his values, his morals, all for the sake of having a peace of mind. Speaking of Akane, she's also an interesting case in a way that she more or less perfectly represents the more "black and white" views on justice in general. Namely the more toxic/biased kind. Her reasons are also understandable but she was also acting selfishly by only focusing on how SHE was effected by Aoi's death and not even considering those that were also grieving her death and/or that people grieve/handle grief differently than her. But back on topic.

Her own views and beliefs that law enforcement basically SHOULD be dismantled (mostly out of said childish bias and black & white views) and it's framed as WRONG and it's very much correct on that. Chaos and order are two sides of the same coin, one can't exist without the other. When I say ACAB, I'm calling for reform, defund, have the corrupt held accountable for EVERYTHING and even face jail time for their crimes! Defund the police, have the ones that arrest, harm, and even murder out of bias (race, gender, etc.), lose their badges/jobs and locked up, make improvements! It's saying that there IS still corruption out there and there's no denying it. But fully eliminating the law in general will just lead to more problems. Now granted, she's young and clearly doesn't fully understand why those views are ultimately wrong but still... It was a very interesting subject to tackle and I feel like they handled it well.

Now back to Zenkichi, he was at first in denial about his decisions ultimately being the wrong ones too and even tries to justify it. Of course, his Shadow said otherwise and that was when he finally admitted that he really did act no different from the criminals he despised. But it also doesn't mean he can't redeem himself and that's what ultimately leads to his new resolve:

That right there along with everything else! There's the nuance! And ultimately despite some hiccups, Strikers handled the grey morality and nuance beautifully! Especially regarding law enforcement! Dare I say, even better than the base game! It continues the critiques with no problem but also showing different sides and areas of it! There is good and evil, but what about in-between? What about the more greyer area? It still says that there IS corruption, sometimes even beyond saving but... Sometimes a small silver lining is hidden somewhere.

Now, the ultimate question:

Is P5 & P5S (namely the latter) Pro-Police or Anti-Police?

Personally, my answer is this: Neither.

Why? What theme do they both have in common?

JUSTICE

Someone puts it best on Twitter that the games are more pro-justice and I fully agree!

P5/P5S gives the idea about following your OWN justice, your OWN moral code and rules, paving your OWN path and not let others dictate it! That's what the MCs ultimately start to learn in both games. Therefore it's pro-justice. Again, do I agree that the system is beyond saving? Yeah. Do I at least acknowledge and understand what the narratives are trying to say and nuances regardless even if I don't agree with some writing decisions (ex: Makoto wanting to become a commissioner despite everything)? Also yes. But at the same time, don't judge a book by its cover for other people (not just law enforcement and politics mind you). Especially some that genuinely DO want to help at best. That there is nuance and greyness, just have to look closely. Some of the MCs are still TERRIBLY written and executed (even annoying) but the message was still somewhat there.

Final Thoughts

Now I fully understand how you all feel of course! I still believe in ACAB and even I agree that maybe I'm one to talk and have a lot more to learn about the world... This is just my own attempt at putting my own two cents in. If you disagree, that's fine! This is just what I've felt should be at least talked about more often. And I tried to phrase it as best as I can without coming off as insensitive or ignorant and if I did, I sincerely apologize for that! I'm not trying to say, come off as a "bootlicker" or any of the sort. I'm just trying show discuss more of the grey areas and nuances that are, more often than not, constantly overlooked. How one interprets both games is ultimately up to them. You, the player. And this is my own interpretation. Simple as that. I hope you all have a good day/afternoon/evening!

#starchild rambles #analysis #persona 5 #persona 5 royal #persona 5 strikers #p5 #p5r #p5s #p5s spoilers #p5r spoilers #p5 spoilers #long post

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samwisethewitch · 3 years

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Reconnecting with the Divine Feminine

I don’t think it’s groundbreaking or controversial at this point to say that all three Abrahamic religions are mostly patriarchal. Sure, we can talk about the veneration of the Virgin Mary, or the woman prophets in the Tanakh, or women saints in Islam. At the end of the day, though, we cannot overlook the fact that in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, God is a man. Since 31% of the world’s population identify as Christian and 23% identify as Muslim, that means over half of the people on Earth are completely disconnected from the feminine side of divinity.

Ironically Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are among very few religions that don’t embrace a feminine aspect of divinity. Patriarchal religion is treated like the norm in most modern cultures (again, largely because of the dominance of Christianity and Islam), but it has definitely not been the norm throughout human history. The Goddess, the Divine Feminine, has been a prominent part of human spirituality since before recorded history.

In ancient Sumer she was Inanna, the Queen of Heaven. In Egypt she was Isis, Lady of the Sky, Great of Magic, and Hathor, Lady of the West, and Sekhmet, Mistress of Fear. In Hinduism she is Shakti, the feminine principle that moves the universe. In Japan she is Amaterasu, the Great Illuminating Deity, and Izanami, the creatrix who rules the underworld. The Divine Feminine has taken all of these forms at different times and places, among many, many others.

Even the Abrahamic religions haven’t always been solely focused on masculine divinity. There is significant evidence that the Abrahamic God was originally part of a larger pantheon before becoming the sole object of worship in Israel and Judah. As part of a polytheist system, he had a consort, a goddess named Asherah. Rabbinic literature refers to the divine presence of the Jewish God as “shekinah” — interestingly, this is a feminine word, implying that this aspect of God is feminine.

The removal of feminine divinity from Christianity largely occurred during the fourth century, when Roman Christianity beat out other traditions as the sole “correct” Church. Before this some Christian groups, notably those in North Africa, had worshiped God as both Father and Mother — a masculine/feminine dyad, rather than the masculine trinity worshiped in Rome. Other groups identified the Holy Spirit as feminine, creating a trinity of Father, Mother, and Son. (Interestingly, these family triads were also common in Egyptian paganism.) When the Nicene Creed was created in 325 to standardize Christian belief and practice, it excluded these interpretations by affirming belief only in “God, the Father Almighty” and “Jesus Christ, the Son of God” and removing all mentions of God the Mother.

All of this does not invalidate the genuine, life-changing spiritual experiences people have had with modern Judaism, Christianity, or Islam. It does, however, prove that patriarchal religion is the exception, not the rule.

Modern paganism’s acceptance and veneration of the Divine Feminine is a large part of its appeal for many converts, especially women, genderfluid, and nonbinary people who do not see themselves represented in the mythology and art of patriarchal religion. The Divine Feminine is present in all pagan religions, though She takes different forms in different faiths.

In monist pagan paths like Wicca, the polarity of Goddess and God is seen as one of the primary ways deity makes itself known to mankind. In the words of Scott Cunningham, one of Wicca’s most influential authors, “The Goddess and God are equal; neither is higher or more deserving of respect… The Goddess is the universal mother. She is the source of fertility, endless wisdom, and loving caresses… She is at once the unploughed field, the full harvest, and the dormant, frost-covered earth.”

The Goddess and the God balance and compliment each other, and this balance is at the core of many neopagan religions. (There are some traditions that exclusively worship the Goddess, but we’ll talk more about that in a future post.)

In polytheist paganism, the Divine Feminine is present in the form of various goddesses who rule over different aspects of life and nature. It is not uncommon for polytheist pagans (or monist pagans, for that matter) to work with multiple goddesses, even goddesses from different historical pantheons. Some goddesses are explicitly associated with certain aspects of womanhood — for example, the Greek goddess Artemis is associated with virgins and young girls, while Demeter is associated with motherhood.

In many (but not all) polytheist systems, there is an emphasis on balance between gods and goddesses. One of my favorite examples of this is the marriage of the Morrigan and the Dagda in Irish mythology. The Morrigan, goddess of war, magic, and death, is married to the “good god” of life, fertility, and knowledge. Their union represents a balance between opposite, complimentary forces.

This brings us to another point I want to make, while we’re on the subject of the Divine Feminine: not all feminine divinities are passive, maternal, fertility goddesses.

In Western culture, women (and, by extension, feminine deities) are seen as the passive or receptive sex. This is largely a product of Victorian England, not an ancient truth.

Without knowledge of sex chromosomes, hormones, or the complexities of gender, Victorian thinkers developed a theory that men had a “katabolic” nature that was constantly releasing energy, while women had an “anabolic” nature that was constantly receiving and storing up energy. This concept of gender greatly influenced Western occultism and can be seen, for example, in Gerald Gardener’s conception of the Goddess as the passive recipient of the God’s energy.

This is a relatively new and very Western idea. In Hinduism, for example, Shakti is both the feminine principle and the energy that moves the cosmos. In the words of author Kavitha Chinnaiyan, “there is nothing in creation that isn’t a manifestation of Shakti.” Shiva, the masculine principle, is unchanging awareness — it is Shakti who possesses the dynamic energy necessary for creation.

I am by no means encouraging pagans to appropriate Hindu concepts. My point here is that no gender is entirely active or entirely passive, which is why so many cultures interpret gender in so many different ways.

Even within systems like traditional Wicca, which operate within a strict gender binary, neither gender can be completely tied down. In their book A Witches’ Bible, traditional Wiccans Janet and Stewart Farrar acknowledge that the “masculine = active, feminine = passive” model is an oversimplification. They use the example of an artist and muse. The (feminine) muse “fertilizes” the (masculine) artist, who “gives birth” to the resulting art.

Personally, I see the masculine/feminine polarity as a constantly shifting dynamic, with both sides giving and receiving energy all the time. Which side of the polarity is more active or passive depends on the situation.

Being pagan does not mean dedicating yourself to the worship of gender binaries, and it does not mean you need to uphold those binaries. God and Goddess are only two of many possible expressions of the Divine, just like man and woman are only two of many possible gender expressions.

Monist pagans see the God and Goddess as two halves of a greater, all-gendered whole. Polytheist pagans may worship gods and goddesses who fall outside of the gender binary such as the Norse Loki or the Egyptian Atum. In either case, divinity is seen as encompassing all possible gender expressions, not just cis man and cis woman.

The erasure of the feminine from Western religion and mythology means that the nonbinary nature of some deities is often downplayed or erased completely. (You’d be hard pressed to find a mythology book that doesn’t use he/him pronouns for both Loki and Atum.) Reconnecting with the Divine Feminine opens the door for other divine expressions of gender.

The end result of this acceptance of feminine and nonbinary divinity is a religious community built on equality between all gender expressions. No one is closer to the gods because of the anatomy they were born with or the gender they present as.

This paves the way for a religion where no one’s worship is restricted because of their gender expression. It allows for priests, priestesses, and priestixes. It allows everyone to fully participate in the rites of their faith, on equal footing regardless of gender or pronouns. It also creates an environment where practitioners feel comfortable exploring issues of gender and sexuality, knowing that they will not lose the support of their community if their identity changes.

Resources:

The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels

Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner by Scott Cunningham

The Morrigan and The Dagda by Morgan Daimler

“Victorian Theories of Sex and Sexuality” by Elizabeth Lee, Brown University

Shakti Rising by Kavitha M. Chinnaiyan, M.D.

A Witches’ Bible by Janet and Stewart Farrar

Casting a Queer Circle: Non-binary Witchcraft by Thista Minai

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thechekhov · 3 years

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Since you are/were a teacher, and non binary, what do your students call you, since here in the west we call teachers Mr/Ms. Do they call you Mr/Ms based on your sex assigned at birth, do they just call you by your name with no title, is there some kinda gender neutral equivalent to Mr/Ms that I don't know about, or is the issue of what students call teachers just completely different in Russia/Japan than it is in the west?

I personally dislike the Mr./Ms. and most gendered honorifics.

Because I’m an English teacher, there are a few homeroom teachers who try to use those with me, but as much as I can, I discourage them from it. For one thing, the younger kids constantly switch it up because they get confused based on what I’m wearing that day. For another thing, it’s pointless.

They either call me sensei or just use my first name, and that’s what I prefer.

#chekhov answers #chekhov in japan #Anonymous

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misdre · 3 years

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misi's beyblade AUs masterpost

i like making AUs, i have many of them, here's a post of them from oldest to newest. (at least approximately) (the ones that got no art of them have photos from unsplash. i just enjoy setting the mood)

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Magical boy AU takao is an ordinary middle schooler who one day gets dragoon the magical spinning top from a cute little azure dragon, seiryuu, and transforms into a magical boy to protect the world from evil for some cosmic reasons that i haven't come up with yet. the rest of the characters have similar powers from their holy beasts and takao needs to gather up his team to fight the evil and. you get the drill is there art of it? yes 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 is there a fic of it? no note: i originally created this just because i like designing the outfits so i haven't planned the story much (this used to be my main focus but then 4kingdoms happened GJSDHGHSDG) i'd want to though, i'll get back to it eventually...at some point...... one of the charm points of this AU is that the holy beasts are these digimon-like animals that hang out with the characters and each have their own personalities.

Fairy tale monster AU takao and gramps live in a cabin in the middle of a forest full of monsters and takao decides one day to venture out to look for a silver-haired boy he once saw, he meets up with the other BBA characters one by one in the grim woods. is there art of it? no is there a fic of it? yes note: my oldest halloween fic. the characters are all these different cute spooky creatures and it's intended to sound like a fairy tale.

One day, he determined that the time was ripe: Takao decided to leave for an adventure. For his grandfather was old, it was not at all unusual for him to lay down to bed before sundown. Once the hut had fallen in drowsy silence, Takao packed his one and only bag with what little he felt he needed, took his cap and jacket, and stepped over the doorsill. He had left the safe warmth of the hut behind.

Royal fantasyverse AU (the tale of four kingdoms) takes place in a fantasy universe with four kingdoms (east, west, south & north) created by the four holy beasts, in an era where each kingdom happens to be ruled by an exceptionally young king due to their respective circumstances. when the four meet for the first time, a snowball of events is set in motion that's going to affect all four kingdoms. is there art of it? yes 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 is there a fic of it? yes 1 / 2 note: like a period drama with magic and gay and tons of worldbuilding. probably has way too many mysteries for the boys to solve because i have no self control when it comes to creating twists. this is The one AU that i have crammed every usable canon character into, i need enough people to inhabit four fucking countries

After creating the four lands, the holy beasts created people to inhabit them. Because the beasts were celestial beings and couldn't but guard people and the world they lived in from far above, they needed human vessels to lead the four nations. Thus they created four kings who would rule over other people using the four beast’s powers. The four kings were neither human nor gods, but something between – they were messengers, or icons, of the four holy beasts.

Omegaverse AU a canon divergence AU (i guess??) where genders are replaced by A/B/O and everyone being either canine or feline. max is a late bloomer canine and finds out he's the only alpha of the BBA boys thanks to a certain feline omega. is there art of it? not really but i do have dog boy max and cat boy rei art (which are a bit too cute for this kinkfest. i mean they're obviously aged up for the real thing.) 1 / 2 is there a fic of it? it's been in the works for like, five years but i always shy away from finishing it note: it's omegaverse, it's exactly what you'd expect. the smut is so filthy i've been too embarrassed to even post it. hiromi is also an alpha by the way

Coffee shop AU highschooler rei goes on a venture to hit on a local Hot University Teacher and coffee shop owner judy in a cafe owned by her, ends up receiving a bunch of flirty cups of latte from barista max working there. is there art of it? no is there a fic of it? yes note: i mean, rei being into blonde MILFs is pretty much canon

Now that Rei looked at the boy more carefully, he realised his hair was just as fair and eyes just as blue as he knew Judy Mizuhara's to be. Maybe they were related? It wasn't that strange if Judy had hired a relative's kid to help out at the shop, right? He certainly looked American, but he had spoken Japanese. And then, all of a sudden, the boy turned to look back to him. Startled, Rei blinked his own golden brown eyes and shifted them back to his now empty cup. God, it was rude to stare at someone, wasn't it? He'd been too deep in thought to even notice doing it. Not that the boy had looked judgmental – he only seemed to wear a smile.

Soulmate AU max keeps having dreams with peculiar scenarios about a boy named rei. one day he borrows a book on soulmates from hiromi and finds a chapter talking about meeting your soulmate in the realm of dreams. is there art of it? no is there a fic of it? yes note: i don't even care for soulmate AUs, this was my own dare to myself to find a single soulmate trope that interested in me enough to write a thing of it.

Max was walking through a crowded airport, carrying a heavy backpack with him. He had never been to this airport in his life, but somehow he knew exactly where he was, and where he was supposed to go. And he was in a hurry, and Rei had at some point emerged from the crowd, as usual, keeping up with him without bumping into any of the people that should have blocked his way. “I'm sorry, this is probably my fault,” Rei said. “I haven't even travelled in ages anymore, but these dreams just keep coming back to haunt me.”

Chess player AU rei is a young chinese chess champion participating in the world junior championships, ends up falling for the american chess prodigy max somehow in the process and is determined to get to play against him again. is there art of it? no is there a fic of it? yes note: so this is one of the weirder ones i've done. it was inspired simply by me having a very vivid mental image of a scene of them playing dramatic chess together. this is probably my most underrated AU even by myself, i think the writing is pretty solid for such a short story of a topic i know practically nothing about

As a child, Rei had initially been taught to play xiàngqí, a Chinese game much more popular back in his home country; but chess with its refined, uniquely shaped pieces was love at first sight for the young Rei. He was a fast thinker and had amazing concentration skills once he set his mind on something, and he also had an outstanding memory, making it easy to memorise game patterns he once saw and then use them for his advantage. This all granted him natural talent in chess. But despite his skill, he had a bad habit of easily losing his temper and becoming indecisive once his focus wavered. Also, he was just a tad bit too sentimental. These traits often became his worst enemy in important matches, much worse than the actual opposing player. Keep your cool. Focus. Play well.

Flower shop + fake dating AU yuriy doesn't really know anything about flowers but is working part-time in a flower shop for the easy cash. he keeps getting a pair of weird customers who ask about flower language for hypothetical situations. is there art of it? not by myself and i don’t have a link to the fanart made of it unfortunately is there a fic of it? yes note: did i write this for valentine's day? i feel like i maybe did. this is my only AU (and fic in general) so far that's about a non-BBA character as the main lmao

“So, I need some advice for a particular situation,” the customer then began, idly tapping the counter with his hand. “I mean, not a real situation, of course – hypothetically speaking, if someone was just pretending to be going out with another person, but they weren't really going but it just needed to seem that way to everyone else, what kinda flowers would get the message through?” Possibly an idiot, Yuriy concluded his analysis. “So you need suitable flowers for a date,” he stated, shooting his eyes at his notes about common flower-usage.

Classical music AU (the heart that i love) max is a piano prodigy attending a classical music college that holds annual music competitions for the students. he's got some haters for being the son of a world-known pianist who's one of the teachers, but he also ends up having a budding romance with rei the mysterious chinese violinist. is there art of it? yes 1 / 2 is there a fic of it? yes note: the origin of this was my "max and mao are besties" college AU. then it got mixed in with my thirst for classical instruments and max being bullied.

Max isn’t exactly a synesthet, but he has always been able to see music as pictures – as entire sceneries, as great adventures. This tendency of his emerges especially strong whenever he’s learning to play a new piece on the piano; as he moves along the melody, the scenery is also being built around him like a jigsaw puzzle, creating a complete picture piece by piece; and once he has mastered the song, he’s able to freely traverse and immerse himself in the world inside that puzzle. Some pieces have a more relaxed or soothing scenery than others, some are exciting and thrilling – even deliciously sinister in the way that a good horror film can be. Setting himself down in front of a piano is always an invitation to a world of his choice.

Bakeneko AU after moving to a small rural town in japan, max hits his head and starts seeing things, such as a weird white cat following him around. after a while, he's convinced that he's being haunted. is there art of it? yes is there a fic of it? yes note: another halloween AU, a more surreal one where max is human and rei is. well. not

Max kept walking, his eyes still on the narrow road. He hadn't noticed while deep in thought, but it really was quiet that evening. The sun had nearly set by now, leaving the sky striped with the dusk of the approaching nightfall. There was no wind to rustle the treetops, no birds chirping, nothing. Only the sound of Max's own footsteps on the pavement, and the matching sound that followed. Followed. What if someone actually was following him? A sudden, violent chill struck down Max's spine, causing his hair to stand on end. He stopped. After a short delay, the steps also stopped.

Genderbend AU a canon divergence AU where everyone's a different gender from canon (duh). starts off as an alternate version of the g-revolution world championships where the girls meet for the first time and befriend each other. rei is a professional model in addition to being a blader in the baihus, and max from the PPB is delighted to be able to battle her. she has no idea that rei has fallen for her at first sight, though. is there art of it? yes 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 is there a fic of it? it's... in the works. note: i created this because i wanted to design attractive girls, what about it. absolutely partial to maxine's huge badonkadonks.

It wasn’t like Rei hadn’t already taken notice of her before, given that they were participating in the same world championship tournament, but the real turning point was the first time they stood on the opposing sides of a bey stadium. It was the day when the match-up roster signalled the match between the Chinese team and the American team, the Baihus versus the PPB All Starz; and despite both teams consisting of five players, it came down to, to Rei’s immense joy, the tag team of Rai and herself against the two most interesting US players, Rikki Anderson and Mizuhara Maxine.

Vampire & merboy AU rei is a starved vampire just about to end his own life when he meets merboy max at a forest lake. is there art of it? of max yes is there a fic of it? yes note: yet another halloween monster AU, this time they are both monsters though. this one’s a pretty grim one i have to admit

Rei succumbed into deep thought, considering his few options, when something grabbed his unsuspecting hand. Something yanked him forward in one mad splash and forced not only the rest of his arm but also his shoulders and head underwater. Half a second later Rei, so badly startled that he’d come close to slipping into insanity, found himself staring at a pair of bright blue eyes only inches away from his own face. His other hand and lower body still firmly on land, Rei pulled himself back with strength that he didn’t even know his weak body still contained. As he did, he also pulled up whatever was clutching his hand, which turned out to be another hand – a white hand with elongated, dirty fingers, so sharp at the tips that they looked like daggers.

Mafia AU max is the boss of the BBA mafia family, rei is a hitman and max's right hand man, the rest have various roles in the organisation. salima, mariam and some other girls (at least) are reporters doing investigative journalism on organised crime who get interested in covering the story of a group of russian elite detectives doing a thorough investigation of the BBA. is there art of it? of rei and max yes 1 / 2 / 3 is there a fic of it? it's in the works but it's just a gratuitous reimax smut note: this is a story i wish existed but this kind of police investigation action thing is so not my genre of expertise. that's why i'm just doing a PWP of my boys and the rest exists on conceptual level

“Did you know,” Salima said, perfectly peppy about it, “that there are secret underground auctions for stolen artwork that’s sold in the black market? Not just online auctions in the dark web but actual, physical events held somewhere in the city! Isn’t that so intriguing? Can you imagine how an event like that would look like, Max?” Max can – in fact, he doesn’t need to imagine. But he’d rather not think about it; the memories bring the familiar taste of bile in his mouth and make his gut curdle with a mixture of disgust and very particular guilt. The mere thought of it makes him set his coffee aside and bring a hand between his tightly shut eyes.

⸻⸻⸻

the next thing i come up with? who knows............

#bey things #i am only moderately insane #so i'm a person who never reads her own writing #but for this post i did. i read my old oneshots #and i wasn't disgusted by them!! actually i was rather impressed with them!!!#i didn't know such a feeling existed. to read your old writing #and be like how nice! writing of my OTP just the way i want it!#genuinely i was charmed by the soulmate AU because i'd forgotten most of it #bc i was so embarrassed about it for some reason? but it was a very nice story

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just-antithings · 3 years

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honestly the Hetalia talks are making me feel better about liking Hetalia 😩 for a few months I've been on the down low about liking it and ffs, every time someone pops a post about "Hetalia is nazi propaganda" the OP is literally someone who knows nothing about Hetalia and cannot bring actual decisive evidence beyond vague hearsay ("I heard from a mutual who had a friend who knew a person that liked Hetalia-") or use another series' content or creator (AOT) to distract people from questioning how Hetalia or Himaruya is "nazi propaganda" despite having no evidence from the series or creator to backup that claim.

OR, most especially, they're projecting their problems onto other people (namely, blaming the fandom and other people about the nazi or confederate fetish they had when they were a 'edgy I like Dark Humour' tween (or as I noticed, because they had heritage from Germany/the South)).

Seriously, yes, there are issue in Hetalia, but whatever issues in Hetalia is also just an standard anime issue.

Lot of white or light-skin characters? Speaking as a brown person, yeah, that's tiring... But how is that different from other manga and anime (hell, that shit even applies to Western media so yall stfu when Western media is just as behind as Japan? (also why is Japan responsible for Western audience representation? Why aren't you taking that issue to Western studios?)) Fucking hell, it's rare for a character to be brown without being the tanned athlete or gyaru in manga/anime - so expecting more than one genuine brown character in anime is laughable when colorism/racism is still just an issue in Japan as it is in the West.

There's "more men than woman" in Hetalia? And? Really how is that different from any other series? It is an issue, sure, but to pretend that it's an issue that started with Hetalia is disingenuous as fuck. (Especially because you look at these anti-Hetalia fans and they'll be into series with just as a severe gender-ratio. Not much a pressing issue as they pretend it to be.)

It's "a yaoi series that caters to fujoshi" - look no matter how much shipping goes on in the fandom, Hetalia is not "a yaoi" (though, nothing wrong with that), and seriously, there is a lot of nonbinary and male fans that ship within the fandom too. Using "fujoshi" is just a misleading excuse to be misogynistic and transphobic (I've seen yall anti-Hetalia fuckers accusing trans men of "fetishizing gay men as a lifestyle").

And lastly, the idea that harassing and shaming Hetalia fans to "protect Jewish and fans of color"? Bull. Crap. Now, is there Hetalia fans who express antisemitic or racist beliefs? Yes, I've ran into them. I'm also ran into Fire Emblem, Pokémon, and Animal Crossing fans who expressed antisemitic or racist beliefs and in those fandoms, I've been told to just "drop it", "leave it", "just ignore them" (yanno, as a brown person). Hetalia is just the scapegoat other people use so as not to address the antisemites and racists within their own fandom. Select Hetalia circles (read: white prevalent, because I'm in largely POC circles) have issues on addressing those problems in our fandom, but so does every other damn fandom too! Because it's "negative drama with bad vibes".

Anyways, Hetalia isn't a perfect series and the English dub has some terrible dark humor, but the current fandom is nothing like the fandom from the early 2000/2010s because the "older fandom" (i.e. the edgy kids and teens that look at Hetalia as their cringe phase because of socialized bigotry and a lack of proper social behavior) has largely left, and those who stayed do our damnist to instill better behavior because we do acknowledge that select behaviors is bad (i.e. wubbifying or romanticizing nazism, the confederate South, ussr, etc, or current events/tragedies/politics).

But ah yes, none of that happens because we're a hivemind who all "went through a nazi phase because the fandom embraces it" (newsflash, we aren't, we don't, and hell that's a lot of projecting personal failures).

hell yes anon go off!!!!!!

#mod el #hetalia mention #nazi mention #im glad my hyperfixation gushing could help you feel better about liking it 😅#i just have chronic not shutting up syndrome

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